Monitoring the progress of your clients’ campaigns – analyzing data and results, giving feedback and regularly assessing the impact that your online marketing efforts are having on their business – is an important aspect of running a digital marketing agency. In fact, analysis of your social media marketing and other digital endeavors are essential as it allows you to see if any adjustments need to be made to your campaigns.
The question is, how often do you do this for your own business?
Just as you need to be able to deliver reports on the progress and results of the work that you are doing for your clients, you need to have some means of tracking performance in your agency. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a digital marketing franchise, an independent agency or a one-man show… performance reviews are vital to ensure that your agency continues to grow and thrive.
If you own or head up an online marketing company don’t assume that you yourself are above performance reviews. You need to be just as accountable, if not more so, to the success of your business. Plus, if you are transparent about including yourself in performance reviews, you will gain a great deal of respect from your employees.
If you are freelancing as a digital marketer and are only accountable to yourself, being brutally honest in assessing how well you are performing can be difficult – but it’s one of the best ways to identify where you have room for improvement.
Pinpoint strengths and weaknesses
Performance reviews allow you to assess the strengths and weaknesses – both of yourself and individual staff members as well as the digital marketing agency. Strengths should always be nurtured and developed: they are often the qualities that make your agency shine. It’s also vital to be realistically aware of your weaknesses and understand where they lie so that you can find solutions to improve on these areas.
Motivate improved performance
When it comes to employees, there’s nothing like being in the spotlight to guarantee increased attention to performing well. It’s important that performance reviews are not used to create a sense of fear but rather for positive motivation. Regular assessments result in healthy competition between staff members, which will ensure that they put greater effort into getting successful results from their online marketing campaigns.
Set attainable targets
A target based performance review is an especially great way to achieve goals in an agency environment. As with motivation, targets generate healthy competition. In addition, a structured goal-orientated system that includes rewards for good performance is a great way of encouraging employees to become self-motivated.
Clearly define areas of responsibility
While most agencies do provide structured job descriptions, when a group of creatively minded individuals works together in a fast-paced environment, it’s tempting for everyone to just pitch in when things get hectic. This can cause confusion as well as tension and resentment. For example, who oversees website design and website hosting? The employee who liaises with the client, or is there a dedicated development team? Regular performance reviews ensure that areas of responsibility are clearly defined, so everybody is crystal clear on who does what, when and where.
For help and advice with your digital marketing, contact us today.